Taiwan @ Otakon 2014

Hello everyone, I decided to go to Otakon this year and I have a few things to say about the convention. Is Otakon worth the money, time, and is the overall experience worth the travel? Keep reading to find out.

Otakon was pretty damn fun expect for the Line of Struggle AKA Line Con (I’ll explain more about Line con later in the article). Otakon is one of the longest running anime conventions in the United States as well as the 2^nd biggest anime convention in North America (according to Wikipedia, so take this information for what it’s worth), Otakon now gets about 30,000 + per year in attendance. http://otakon.com/history_stats.asp (For attendance stats)

Positives

Otakon is pretty big; the Baltimore Convention Center (AKA BCC) is very nice and right beside the Baltimore harbor. There are a lot of places that you can stop to eat at in the area, lots of hotels, and the Orioes baseball stadium isn’t too far away so there’s so much that you can explore and experience while at Otakon if you wanted to do so or if you’re just in the Baltimore area.

 

If you’re looking to meet new people that are into anime and manga look no further. Otakon is huge so you’re bound to run into many different people, while you’re asking different people/cosplayers for pictures, create conversation and bam new friends *Laughs*, it’s a good way to come out of your comfort zone if you’re normally quiet and shy (like me).

There are many things you can do at Otakon such as, hit panels, get autographs from your favorite anime/video game voice actors, take pictures of your favorite cosplay that you see, buy stuff from the dealers room and artist alley. Also if you like to partake in dancing then you could go to the rave. Check out the maid café if you want some to taste some good sweets and to check out the kawaii girls that cosplay as maids.

My thoughts

I got the opportunity to have a few people (cosplayers) that wanted to be in the video that was being made for blerdsonline.com and I even got to meet a Twitter follower and she’s in the video as well. Viz Media and Aniplex USA gave out some free stuff at their panels; luckily I got some of that free stuff. I talked to some of the people that work at Viz Media, Funimation, Aniplex USA, and Crunchyroll to learn about what they do and how it’s like working for those companies. Got a lot of great recording footage (at least I think so) and saw religious protestors preaching about the word of God at the convention, saw homeless people asking for money (felt bad because I didn’t give the ones any money who asked me, I need my money :/ sorry). Had a lot of fun and I honestly felt like a kid at a candy store (I think I used that line before *laughs*).

Negatives

THE FUCKING STRUGGLE LINE AKA LINE CON! Let me tell you, I paid 80 mother fucking dollars (which I don’t mind paying but keep reading) to pre-register. For anybody that doesn’t know when you pre-register you get your badge a day early so that you don’t have to waste time buying one on the first day of the convention. On Thursday (the day before Otakon started) I got into the ridiculous long line to get my badge around 7pm. Three hours passed and I was still in line waiting to get my badge, staff and other people that were waiting in line told people like me that were waiting in the back of the line to go home because pre-register closed around 10-10:30pm. You don’t know how fucking pissed I was. Luckily me and my roommates woke up early on Friday and got in line early (I have footage of the Line Con from that Friday morning, might be on the video, I wrote this article before the video came out) and waited two hours to finally get our badges. Other than the Line of Struggle I have no complaints. I would suggest that Otakon (the staff) would start to mail badges so that Line Con wouldn’t be a problem.

Overall

Otakon was really fun, I enjoyed myself and had a blast. I got to meet new people and got lost in the awesomeness that is Otakon. Otakon definitely made up for what Anime Midwest lacked. I would even say that my experience at Otakon was better than my experience at Katsucon. Thanks for reading and check out blerdsonline.com 
Follow @BroskiTaiwan

It's everything you ever wanted. To see another black nerd at another anime convention. This time Taiwan takes his talents to South Beach Baltimore for Otakon 2014. So much footage, you may see this event in future videos. Maybe in like a week you could see some panels from Viz or Funimation. But that's only with your support.

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